


starts and stops

by dudavocado



Category: The Martian (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dudavocado/pseuds/dudavocado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His clothes are still hanging off of him in a way that has Mark talking about taking up <i>Flashdance</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arbitrarily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/gifts).



> This is not quite what you asked for, but I hope it achieves some of the spirit of your prompt. Happy Holidays!
> 
> Warnings: Some talk of disordered eating and Mark could be considered to be going through PTSD, but I wouldn't call it descriptive or specific, but I wanted to warn about that just in case.

 

In the immediate aftermath of Mark’s rescue there’s a lot of hugging and crying and—thank goodness for Mark and Rick—laughter. They can’t stay in the EVA area forever and Mark bends his head, quiet, as they all start to file out.

“I just wanted to say,” Mark shrugs, still not looking at them. “I can’t remember where I left my toothpaste and my breath is honestly starting to effect me.”

Johanssen just groans and keeps on heading out with Beck following closely behind her. Martinez flips him the bird, but he’s grinning.

Vogel looks mildly amused and says, “Seriously, you need to brush your teeth and your tongue.”

When the others have filed out it’s just her and Mark.

There are several things she wants to say, but putting them into words proves difficult. Out of the flight suit, Mark is much smaller than the last time she saw him and she can see where he wasn’t able to shave.

“Everything okay?” He says a few minutes after the others have left.

“You destroyed NASA property.” She gestures towards the flight suit. “It’s a good thing it worked.”

Mark laughs and that’s still the same for the most part. “I don’t like sharing credit.”

“Right into the grave.”

Mark walks past her, still smiling, and his breath really does smell awful. His mouth is barely open and she can still just smell it. She actually turns away before she can think about it.

He gets the wrong impression, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was too soon for _me_ to make jokes, but actually what I wanted to say before—“

She laughs, sharp and quick, even though his breath really does smell awful and she’s never quite let go of a childhood phobia of opening her mouth around bad smells, and for a good ten seconds she can’t stop.

When she looks at Mark, he looks suspicious.

“It’s your breath,”

“You try to be honest with someone—“

“Seriously, you need to handle that.”

He walks away muttering something about Mars about rationing and what she hopes is not Vicodin, but she can’t plug much else into the sound.

 

-

 

Lewis never dreamt of rescuing Mark during the trip back to Earth before they knew he was alive. She thought about the alternatives. They never left Mark behind. The wind wasn’t as strong and Mark had not been knocked so far. There weren’t as many damn rocks in the sky. 

They brought back his body. They at least brought back his body for his parents.

She’d met his parents. They were good people. Mark and his mother went back and forth with jokes and stories and admonishments—from Mark’s mother to him—compliments and looks.  His father gave him noogies and was quiet as his wife and son went on and on about baseball, where to get the best Chicago style pizza and an old family conflict regarding whether Mark once cheered for the White Sox to get a girl in his fifth grade class to like him.

When she’d told them Mark was dead, his father had cried and his mother hand walked away from the vid-screen before she’d gotten a word out. Why else would she be calling them?  They’d met a handful of times. She was Mark’s commanding officer.

Simple math.

 

Because of NASA…because of NASA, she hadn’t even been able to tell them he was alive. Teddy did that and if their reaction when she finally was able to contact them about Mark being alive was any indication, he’d done an unsatisfactory job of it.

There are things she remembers—the soft thud and Mark blinking out of sight as he was hit: no vitals, no helmet lamp, no chatter about doing a bit more work _in the middle of a sandstorm on Mars_. It still makes her feel sick. 

It’d made her feel sick to know he was alive.

During the Hermes’ journey back to Mars, Mark had sent her a message: _Don’t feel any of that Never leave a Man Behind nonsense._ Then a few seconds later. _You have me saying nonsense, seriously, like I’m 60 years old. I literally said it. You know I like the sound of my own voice._

It’s strange having him back in the flesh, but different.

 

-

 

His clothes are still hanging off of him in a way that has Mark talking about taking up _Flashdance_.

“You know that’s not the name of any dance?” Johanssen says this after he says it during lunch. She gives everyone else a quick look. “I know we weren’t saying anything because of _Mars_ , but I just need to know that you know. I need it confirmed.”

Mark is sitting next to her picking at his potatoes and throwing Beck dirty looks like Beck said something about Mark’s mother, but he perks up at Johanssen’s question.

“Well it came out before I was born so I just assumed it was a self-explanatory title. Like Top Gun or Citizen Kane.”

Rick points to him from where he’s leaning against the counter. “You’ve never seen Citizen Kane?”

“I honestly thought you’d be more upset about Top Gun.” She says.

Rick shakes his head, disappointed, and points at her with his fork. “As if I’d talk to him if he’d never seen Top Gun. Good title choice though.” The last he directs at Mark.  

 

-

 

Beck comes to her on a Monday, more or less, and says “Mark is still rationing his food and he wants to go back to the gym and he just asked to be a groomsmen at Johanssen’s wedding. Because “I can’t be a groomsmen at a renewal of vows. That’s dumber than a double wedding.”

She decides to start with the most important part of what he said. “He’s still rationing his food?”

Beck doesn’t look impressed with where she started, but he shuts that feeling down quickly and sits. “You’ve noticed. His weight hasn’t changed all that much since he came back. He’s eating more than he would have been eating on Mars, but he’s eating about 1,000 calories less than he needs.”

“You’ve spoken to him about it?”

“He thinks I’m exaggerating. I’ve been watching him eat,”

That seems like it would be a terrible idea for any of them, let alone Mark.

“Have you tried telling him to eat? You outrank him.”

“He thinks I’m exaggerating.”

“How long until it becomes a problem?”

Beck shrugs.

“Really glad you’re the ship’s doctor.”

“It depends. He wants to go back to the gym, but he’s not in good enough shape for that.”

“Anything else?”

 

Beck shakes his head.

“Okay. Keep me informed if the situation changes. Try stealing his food. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just give him an order. What did Johanssen say?”

Beck frowns. “She asked why he didn’t ask me.”

She looks at him until he stands up defensively. “He said that obviously he’d ask my fiancé.”

She laughs as he walks out of her workspace and down the hall.

 

-

 

She’s walking by the helm of the ship when she hears Mark’s voice.

“—Potatoes can be fried, baked, hasselbacked, diced, sliced, curled, stewed, boiled, roasted, mashed, can’t forget mashed, hashed was also a thing. Respond to any and all messages in a timely manner. Send messages.”

“Survive. It was like Groundhog Day, but shitty and not like Groundhog Day at all except it would be pretty cool to Groundhog Day on Mars…unless the Hab doors exploded every day.

You had enough nightmares and daydreams turned into nightmares about that to last a lifetime.”

He keeps going and she can see next to him that Martinez looks concerned and a bit wary. She steps further into the space and Martinez notices her, but doesn’t say anything when she shakes her head.

“—partial to reptiles and It’s cold as fuck on Mars. A snake probably would have eaten him or his hand. A rabbit would have died. You wouldn’t have been able to cook it or clean it or eat it later.

Would you have wanted to? After bonding with it?”

“Watney, I’m glad you’re back, but you need to go to sleep.” Rick has turned his attention to the flight path and Mark sits up straight.

She can’t see his face, but his voice is completely different when he speaks next. “This is the most interesting conversation you’ve had in months.”

He must be smiling because Rick sighs as if he carries the burdens of the world and says, “Go ahead.”

“Would it be rude to ask my mom to make me a turkey? I should wait until we’re closer to Earth. I wouldn’t want anything to spoil. None of us have had Thanksgiving in a long time and not in a semester abroad or “I’m German” way. We should do something big. Family style.

Maybe we could get the President to come. Certainly, we’re all going to meet the President.  I sure as shit get to.”

“Watney,” she says, cutting him off because his voice was veering into that tone he’d been using before like he was avoiding something only he couldn’t acknowledge what it was.

“Stop narrating your ego and go to bed.”

She steps up behind him and reaches out to take hold of his shoulder and sees him flinch; can tell that he’s watching her in his peripheral vision. She waits a beat and then lays her hand gently on his shoulder.

He folds with it. Not completely, but he relaxes.

She’s noticed that he’s taken to watching Kung-Fu movies with Johanssen or sitting next to Vogel during meal times and reading over his shoulder. They’ve all noticed.

He’s not given anyone a hug since the day he got back. Has said he was fine more times than can be taken seriously.

She moves him, up out of Vogel’s seat, and with a good night directed at Rick, she leads him back to the bunks. He easily moved and easily led.

 

He’s still talking not as quickly or distracted as before, but not quite to her or to himself either.

“—sang half the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and didn’t notice till you were in the middle of a high note. Not even the first high note.”

She’s about to say something when he says, clearly, so she knows it’s directed at her, “I can’t eat too much too soon. We have to survive the next seven months.”

Melissa doesn’t know what to say to that.

They’ve reached his room and now he’s really talking to her, voice tired, but regular, like Mark usually sounds. “These rooms are so small. The Hab had so much space and eventual death, but the space.”

He smiles eyes bright and crinkled. Her hand is still on his shoulder so she lets him go and he ‘s walking into his little room and saying “Goodnight,” without looking at her, shoulders tense again.

 

-

 

 “How is it possible the only music you wanted to bring to space was disco?”

They’re eating lunch or rather she’s eating lunch and staring hard at Mark to make sure he finishes his lunch.  While it’s not as bad as before he’s still rationing or attempting to.

“Better me than Vogel or Beck.”

He looks at her expectantly. “German techno and the boybands his daughter is probably no longer into.”

“I didn’t know Beck had a daughter.”

She doesn’t entertain him. “Show tunes and a lot of 90s grunge for some reason. Some jazz.” She considers what she remembers of Beck’s playlist. “Good jazz. Vogel also has a ton of opera.”

“You still haven’t addressed,”

“Shut up.”

His offense seems so genuine that she laughs.

“Shut up? I can change the subject. Boybands?”

“He misses his daughter.”

“That’s what home movies and pictures are for.”

“You would have been at a rave that doubled as a child’s birthday party and a funeral. In Italy.”

“At least there would have been variety.”

 

-

 

Mark’s lab space is pretty small and half the plants died on the way back to Earth and then the return journey to Mars didn’t help man of the others.

He works in there pretty consistently starting from about a month into the journey home.

He prunes. He takes notes. He updates their data on the soil quality and the effects of certain chemicals on Mars soil. In his updates, he sends them notes in the margins, marked private.

> _It’s not like I stuffed my flight suit with notes._
> 
> _A lot of this is from memory so fuck getting any of it published._
> 
> _Fuck all other botanists too._
> 
> _No one can tell me shit. I’ve grown potatoes on Mars._
> 
> _Well. I have a list of people who can tell me shit, but it’s not NASA as an entity._

They all help him. She doesn’t need to ask the others to know that it’s good to be around him even when he’s annoying.

 

They’ve spent the equivalent on six and a half college semesters together and training, being on the ship, was a lot like college, an incredibly small and exclusive college.

This motherfucker, who drank in six shots of Kahlua and tequila on a dare in a bar in Nevada and then cried after Martinez did the speech from Independence Day three times in a row, is alive. He’s fucking alive.

It’s okay to ask him for any money he owes back. (Vogel held up his hands after saying this. Mark was asleep in his seat on the bridge. “He’s on the ship. We can joke about these things.”)

According to Mark, who’s always got something to say about any one of them helping him with his plants or soil samples, the only person who is as good with their hands as Lewis is Martinez.

Beck acts like he’s never even heard of a plant let alone seen. “Heaven bless us for never being under his knife.”

Vogel doesn’t offer to help with anything except notes. Though he does offer the most entertaining commentary.

“Johanssen prefers to plant,” Mark turns from what Melissa believes is a dwarf fichus and says, “she likes that it’s more practical than her usual interests. Also, she likes the Latin names, which reminds me, she asked me on the way to Mars for some names and suddenly Beck was an expert. Well he knew five and it was embarrassing, but seriously.”

Night Cruiser is playing because it is her ship and despite what Mark says she’s heard him singing Deodato on more than one occasion.

“This song is a bit aggressive for these guys.”

“Music is good for plants. Don’t complain.”

“They’re not sentient.”  
“Wouldn’t know the way you touch them.”

She watches as he tries and fails not to be ruffled. “They need attention. Good moods.” He turns to her smiling, “They could obviously tell you guys thought I was dead.”

The tennis ball she’s been tossing in the air for the last five minutes falters, but doesn’t fall out of her hand. She keeps tossing it.

“I didn’t,” he says before shrugging and turning back to the fichus. “I spoil them. Say the wrong thing like…maybe the Yankees will win the World Series.”

She shudders too and he catches her and they both laugh tension broken.

 


	2. mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part has a few snapshots of Mark's first few weeks back on the ship. It's very short. Like a treat tag to the previous chapter. Hope you enjoy it.

Something like 57odd days since the last time he touched another person or had another person touch him.

Now it’s been two hours. He didn’t feel it before. He feels it now. It wakes him up.  
Dozens of little things creeping out of the box he kept them in because they were essential to surviving. They wake him up. The sheets. The memories of the others’ hands, skin, hair, and smiles when he was first got back on the ship. 

They pull him out of sleep. 

He can feel space beneath them. He can feel that. He’s not going to die. 

Unless…

Nothing occurs to him. He stares into the black above his head and his mind blanks on worst-case scenarios. He can think of them, but the words won’t come. The images are blurry. 

It’s like when he was a kid and would stare at the sun until it hurt—until one of his older cousins told him that’s how he’d ruin his eyes—and still be able to feel it when he closed his eyes. Not the Sun, but the sun. Safer. 

He’s alive.

He’s had this dream before. This is not a dream. 

This is not a dream. 

Lewis’s laugh warms her face. It’s the fourth day he’s seen her in such a long time. The lines of her smile, he doesn’t know how to say what he’s feeling. 

Martinez’s voice when he tells a particularly good joke. The way it warms you up even if it’s at your expense. 

Vogel kept the score chart for their incredibly long and mildly pointless game of Hangman—they’d started it a few days after the crew was assembled just to waste time. “Why would I get rid of it? I’m leading.” The last word the played was persiflage. 

Johanssen has Kung-Fu movies they can still watch together and Beck has ever more interesting ways to talk about being in love with Johanssen without being specific because no one is supposed to know. 

Plus he helps Mark cheat at Hangman. He helps Vogel cheat too. 

Beck’s trick is that he’s an incredibly terrible speller. 

It’s overwhelming to be experiencing them again. In the flesh. 

-

Even though it means space is the visual—and space gets old—he keeps Martinez company on and off throughout the day. 

“You’ll get used to it soon,” Martinez gives him a look before turning back to the controls. “Took you two weeks last time and then you slept like a baby. Whole life on Earth. Two weeks to get space trained. Mars is…well Mars. You’ll get used to it again.”

“What if I don’t?”

Martinez shrugs, says, “I don’t know hallucinations and then we put you down.” He changes the subject to his niece who’s going to be in a middle school production of Our Town, as the narrator.

“That sounds depressing and boring as hell. Is she any good?”

Martinez rocks back and forth with his nose scrunched up for a moment as he thinks about it. “She’s good. Don’t know about the narrator or the play to be honest. They should have done something they could have fun with.”

“Like the Crucible or Waiting for Godot.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet.”

“Hamlet is fun.”

“She deserves better than Our Town.”

“Can you still do Independence Day?”

“You want to hear it? You cried last time?”

“One: I asked. Two: Now I do want to hear it. Three: I was drunk and so were you.”

Martinez punches his shoulder, hard, but friendly and takes five quick breaths before starting.

-

It’s quieter than Mark was prepared for, but he didn’t even think about handling the quiet of the shit. Had never thought beyond living long enough to be rescued or for being stranded to mean something. Some future crew finding his bones in the lab not quite finished writing out notes on soil samples. 

Now that he’s back on the ship…It’s quiet. 

On Mars, he’d often thought that his mother would have a good joke about the situation, but then he talked to his mother and she cried and told him not to be smart when he’d reminded her she’d known he was alive for months. 

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

-

He wishes Vincent hadn’t told him how badly the Cubs were doing. Or how, once people learned he was the alive, they’d started dedicating games to him before they’d even won them. That Martinez hadn’t pulled anything laughing over that was proof that God wasn’t kind. 

Apparently, the Yankees had dedicated a game to him, just to show support. Another reason to hate the Yankees. At least it wasn’t Boston. 

-


End file.
